Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Saturday January 26, 2008 @10:26AM
from the can't-hurt-things dept.

ZerothOfTheLaw writes "It appears that Google is going to eliminate Adsense for Domains for all domains younger than five days old.
From the post 'The Good news is that the Quantity of advertising will be spread among fewer domains now and so those domain owners that actually own real full domains should receive more money if bid prices start to rise as a result of this. However some advocates of Domain Tasting say that perhaps no one will be able to serve the niche for some ads and no one will make money on the unserved ads.'"

However some advocates of Domain Tasting say that perhaps no one will be able to serve the niche for some ads and no one will make money on the unserved ads

Good. Advertising revenue is not something that anyone is entitled to receive. Show me a site with useful content supported with unobtrusive advertising and maybe you'll get my eyeballs for a while. What we don't need are more linkfarms.

Indeed, but Google seems to actively support this kind of domain squatting - see http://www.google.com/domainpark/ [google.com] . Seriously, how does this 'service' they provide possibly fit into "don't be evil" ?

I have several domains that I've purchased, but they are currently only used for mail purposes. I did purchase them for actual use, but why not let me set up domain parking?(minor note is that I haven't, partly because I don't think anyone will visit randomly, and even if they do, why the hell should the follow links)

If you purchased them it's not a problem, and it's a 5 day "buffer" that the question is about.

The problem with "domain name tasting" is that domain names can get blocked and abused during the period. If all domain names had to be paid for then there would have been less problems with domain kidnapping...

I was responding to jaiyen's disdainful remark about the Google Adsense Domain parking program, not the current developments.I did, however, rebuff my own statement, as I then discovered that it's only available in bulk.

Do you honestly find domain parking to be evil? It may not be classy and domain squatters tend to piss me off but I still wouldn't classify it as evil. The problem isn't so much the squatters as the idiots that actually click ads through squatted domains and the registrars that allow "tasting" to begin with. Google isn't the only player in the industry as far as Domain Squatting goes and thus them not being in the market doesn't really stop it, it just limits the amount of competition.

How bout this, Virtual tasting. You can have adsence ads for the 5 days, BUT you don't receive any real money and the advertisers aren't charged. This way you can know how successful the domain might be, without occurring actual ad revenue.

Google is preventing money to be made from AdSense while domain-tasting. The problem is domain-tasting tests whether a domain receives traffic. If a domain receives one visit during a five-day period, the domain is likely to receive enough traffic to offset the registration cost. Whether income is earned on that first visit does not change the domain-tasting business. This policy only affects companies that taste and never buy. No company spending money on equipment to handle tasting (automating regist

I concur, ScrewMaster. Those same linkfarms are very often the ultimate
target of massive spam runs, which is why various attempts to identify
recently-registered domains and deny all mail from them until they're
N days old (N > 5, with various experiments choosing other values) have been made.

In my own research, I've frequently noticed that spam source or spam target
domains often have been de-registered by the time I run a WHOIS lookup on them.
Just about as often, I've noticed that their A records p

Ever notice how Slashdot articles on abuse of the DNS system or attempts to stop it are often on websites that serve the DNS abuser business? I can't tell for sure about domaintools.com, but it looks like they're mainly in business to support people who rent domain names for their advertising value rather than for their ability to indicate the content on a real site. It's possible that I'm mis-characterizing them, but their domain name sale and auction tools and a number of their blog articles look like t

Slashdot has ads? One of these days I need to disable Privoxy, Adblock, and my Hosts file and browse the web like a normal person.

For the last few weeks I thought there was a bug of some sort in Slashdot's fancy "New Discussion System". I'd expand an abbreviated post and there'd be this funny white space inserted between it and the next post, like there was an additional nested reply that wasn't getting displayed. It wasn't until I checked out something on Slashdot from a friend's computer that I realized that the blank space is supposed to contain a banner ad! Now I'm thinking I don't like their New Discussion System so much.

I promptly switched off the "I'm willing to test the new discussion system" flag. If they implement it, I'll stop using Slashdot.

Suggestion - post to this thread if you think likewise, and we can take an opportunity to express displeasure at screwing up a discussion system due to an utterly misguided attempt at threading adverts in amongst our own posts.

I probably wouldn't mind the new discussion system so much if it weren't so broken on konqueror.

Just use IE6 on Microsoft Windows whatever and be happy. You Will Be Assimilated.

I'm sorry - I shouldn't need to use a specific web browser to view a particular website.

I agree, but that argument was lost a long time ago. return -ETOOMANYIDIOTS. The system I have to use to access mail at work since I refuse to use MS Windows on my desktop fails to load when accessed via Firefox 2 or higher with an error message that says "This application requires Firefox 1.5 or better." Whee!

If they force the new discussion system in any form I think it would be just enough hassle that I'd find another nerd site to kill my time. I appreciate the idea but I'm used to navigating around Ye Olde Slashdot and I prefer it tremendously. Not to mention the ads which are the icing on the cake. Although if they wanted a shot at those extra ads making significantly more money they'd have to make "classic Slashdot" a premium feature or something, because I can't see anyone using that in its current form ov

I promptly switched off the "I'm willing to test the new discussion system" flag. If they implement it, I'll stop using Slashdot.

Well piss off and good riddance then. Since a lot of people work hard to provide the service that is slashdot the least you can do is not begrudge them a fair wage for their troubles.

By visiting this site we all take up a shit load of bandwidth. It's not by accident that we can kill a site that gets linked to if they do not have unlimited bandwidth. How many times have you tried to follow a link and it has been slashdotted? Please have a little more understanding of how much it must cost to host a site lik

Suggestion - post to this thread if you think likewise, and we can take an opportunity to express displeasure at screwing up a discussion system due to an utterly misguided attempt at threading adverts in amongst our own posts.

I agree entirely, and I wonder how far this encroachment of adverts into discussions

Very interesting. I also assumed this white gape was a bug. Unlike you, however, I'm not running any ad-blocking software. I don't mind the ads at the top of the page (I even click on them sometimes), but if they are going to add them in between comments then it will give me another reason to cut back on my/. habit. Mind you, I'm already blocking kdawson from the front page and that's cut down the volume of stories I see considerably.

There is a difference between avoiding looking at something and ensuring you can never see something. I never suggested watching advertising should be mandatory, but having visible advertising is absolutely mandatory for the business model that pays for this site, your favourite search engine and a bunch of other stuff you use every day. By removing yourself from the pool of possible ad-viewers, you are removing yourself from the pool of people who pay for the services and content. The rest of us have to see more ads to generate the same revenue, so your selfishness really does impact other people. That is freeloading.

Having flashing, moving ads is not essential for <i>any</i> site. Lots of sites choose to make it that way, and that's why a lot of people install ad blockers. Anyone trying to make money loses all credibility when they piss of their customers.

The problem, to me anyway, is that I'm totally overloaded when it comes to ads. Everywhere, 24/7, someone is trying to sell me something. SMS ads on my cell phone, telemarketers on my landline, ads on my fax at work, ads on TV, radio, newspapers... people stopping me on the street pushing all kinds of products: phone companies, electric companies, vitamins, insurance, magazines. I'm just so fed up with ads that I protect my self in every way possible. I screen calls, answering only number I know, turn off m

There are plenty of restrictions about how one can advertising in the real world. I have no problem with a modest amount of advertising. I'm probably a bit more capitalistic and libertarian in my thinking than many slashdotters. My parents own a sign shop, so while I myself have nothing to do with the business, I do understanding the importance of advertising one's business interest to the world.That being said, I would absolutely oppose the elimination of all signage codes. One thing many libertarian-m

I never quite understood the "tasting" concept. The vast majority of the people utilizing "tasting" are doing it for unscrupulous reasons. Anyone with a legitimate need for a domain is going to be willing to pay the going rate to actually register one.

Well, imagine that you're a company/person contracted to build a website for XYZ Company. You come up with a dozen or so potential domain names, 'tasting' them in order to make sure they're available(without tying them up for a full year, or spending the money to register them for a year). You then present the domain names to the company, which picks the one they like the best, maybe one other for a redirect. You then release the other four and call it a day.

Make sense that way. Abusers, of course, were not initially considered.

As for cost, domain registration is considerably cheaper than it used to be.

Right now, services like google adsense can make 'tasting' profitable because it doesn't cost any money. If you simply make it cost more than what 5 days of ad revenue would likely generate, you'd kill it immediately.

Well, imagine that you're a company/person contracted to build a website for XYZ Company. You come up with a dozen or so potential domain names, 'tasting' them in order to make sure they're available(without tying them up for a full year, or spending the money to register them for a year). You then present the domain names to the company, which picks the one they like the best, maybe one other for a redirect. You then release the other four and call it a day.

And if you didn't release the other four and had to buy them, the client would have spent an extra $40 -- cost of doing business. I fail to see the problem here.

Exactly. How much of a competent web designer's time does $40 buy? Maybe an hour (if it's a small outfit and there isn't much overhead)? Would it really add much to a web design contract? I doubt you'd get more than one or two low-content static pages for the cost of a few extra domains.

So, implement tasting by having the domain registrar direct requests for 'reserved' names to a page that says something to the effect that 'There is an application pending for XYZ.com which will expire in N days'. Until the application is paid up, the name shouldn't resolve an address.

People are entitled to "Buyers Remorse" in a good chunk of the world. Aside from that, if they change their mind about an online purchase inside of a couple of days, they often utilize the facilities their credit card companies give them to cancel the payment, which incurs significant cost to the seller.

If you don't give purchasers the ability to cancel their order without cost when they changed their mind, it generally ends up costing you more than it's worth.

People are entitled to "Buyers Remorse" in a good chunk of the world. Aside from that, if they change their mind about an online purchase inside of a couple of days, they often utilize the facilities their credit card companies give them to cancel the payment, which incurs significant cost to the seller.

If you don't give purchasers the ability to cancel their order without cost when they changed their mind, it generally ends up costing you more than it's worth.

Come off it - we're not talking people buying something retail here - we're talking domain names. Buy it because you want it or need it. Don't like it after a week -sell it. This whole "domain tasting" bullshit has to end.

Try returning that losing lottery ticket the day after the draw. "Buyer's remorse"? Are you fucking kidding? Try returning your big mac an hour later. Try returning your custom-made whatever (and all domain names are custom - by definition, no two are alike).

Way to ignore his points. On another note, tomorrow I'm off to buy lottery tickets with my credit card.

He didn't have any points. He ranted about how stupid he thought everything was and compared registering a domain name with buying a lottery ticket. It's a moronic argument, because a lottery ticket is a consumable item, while domain name registration is a long term service agreement.

If someone else buys a particular lottery ticket before you, you can still buy the exact same numbers yourself. If you don't register a free domain name when you see it, however, you might find it gone by the time you get budget approval or whatever.

If you can't make a $35 (US) purchase out of petty cash, then you should go talk to your boss, about what is a reasonable business expenditure to make without talking to higher management. If they are going to pay you enough to be a webmaster, or whatever, they should give you enough purse power to do your job.

It's hardly a terrible thing. These people make money because there are currently vast inefficiencies in the advertising market. As long as there is money to be made people will do it, forcing companies like Google to close up the holes, either making their process more efficient in the mean time - or creating a new, possible legitimate, market.
It amazes me how - when it comes to political articles - it seems the majority of Slashdoters are Libertarian Anarchocapitalists - yet when something like this com

Here's a secret: parked domain owners don't like click-fraud. They like clicks, but they don't like a large amount of clicks from persons not interested in purchasing whatever is being advertised. Why? Because the people paying for AdWords don't like click-fraud, they don't want to pay real money for nothing. So they take it up with Google, who now has to reverse the click-fraud, costing them money in work and lost revenue. So Google takes it up with the parked domain owner, who's not gonna like that.

If your spam filter hadn't worked so well, you'd have seen the offer to sell you something to help you with that ageusia [wikipedia.org] problem.
You really should upgrade to Hotmail, so we can do a better job of serving you.

It'll never happen, because there is no way Google would do anything to reduce it's revenue, but they really need to do something about Google Ad Spam on web pages. More and more web sites have more Google Ad 'content' than real, useful information. First there was email spam, now we have Google Spam. Blah.

It'll never happen, because there is no way Google would do anything to reduce it's revenue, but they really need to do something about Google Ad Spam on web pages.

Domain name tasters don't pay google to have ads displayed - they get paid by google.

As an example, we'll say that NetworkDNS registers a domain name that you look up. When you attempt to register from GoDaddy, you find it's been snatched up. When the 10 people that visit the site look at the page, Google pays NetworkDNS for showing these 10 ads while NetworkDNS pays nothing for tasting a registration. These 10 people are not going to follow links as most normal people can recognize a taster/pseudo-sit

Um, you're kind of wrong about a couple of points. Google doesn't pay the site owner for "displaying" ads, it pays them when and only when someone actually clicks on those ads. Second, Google is, in a certain sense, "paid" by the domain name tasters, to the extent that the ad clicks generated by the tasting domains only exist as a result of someone tasting that domain: Google gets a certain amount, $X from the advertiser, whenever someone clicks on an advertiser's ad, and then pays $X-Y to the person who owns the page where the ad was displayed. So Google in effect is "paid" $Y by the domain tasters, in the sense that that click was only possible as a result of the page existing.

The sites visitors don't necessarily have to click the ad. They only need to have an accelerator installed which preloads all hyperlinked pages regardless of whether they will click the links later or not.

Do you have evidence that accelerators do that for third party domains? If you're browsing foo.com, I can see it preloading foo.com/products and foo.com/support... but preloading http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk [googlesyndication.com]...? If so, that kind of software would be costing advertisers millions.

Google makes money from advertising by charging you money for showing ads, at least if people click on them.

Google shows ads on pages that include Google Adsense banners, so if you can get somebody to look at your web page and click on the ads, Google pays you. Domainer Parasites do this by buying or tasting plausible-sounding names and putting up ad banner pages, usually with no real content, and domain parking services will do the work of implementing them if you don't want to serve them yourself. Domai

It means it'll take 5 days for them to make any money from Google. Rightly so - anyone trying to cash in on a meme THAT quickly? (Under 5 days?) Real memes stick. Google's just attacking their weak point for massive damage.

The whole idea of advertisement is to reach as many people as possible, how can you say that not having the ability to post on any billboard is a good thing?

More over from a business standpoint by one company turning down a new site which has the potential of becoming an old site, the new site will have to goto another ad company to bring in revenue, won't doing this make it more difficult to bring in the 'diamond in the rough'? Don't most companies/sites start off new?

Any real site is going to need more than five days just to get content developed, scripts written, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, everyone may "start off new" -- but that's not to say that they're ready to earn revenue from day one.

Why is is evil? Well, domain tasters [wikipedia.org] are folks trying to capitalize on traffic they don't really own. That's kind of hard to understand but you have to understand the definition of domain tasting to full grasp that.

This should also help understand the "evil" behind the practice...

"In January 2007, VeriSign said that among the top 10 domain registrars, 95% of all deleted.com and.net domain names were the result of domain tasting." (Information Week [informationweek.com])

Google's doing this to protect users who get to these sites on accident. I guess it's good for everyone.

Some registrars apparently benefit from it, probably from domain parking services that they provide along with the names or whatever other fees they charge in addition to the $6 ICANN price. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them doing it, since it costs them not only the relatively minimal cost of handling transactions but also the cost of capital on the $6/year for the domains they're kiting (though obviously that's only 5/365th of the cost each time, so it's still not much.)

For me, Google adsense for domains [google.com] is a scammers paradise anyway. How many hours haven't I wasted walking over "parked" domains trying to find a real domain. Let's face it - 99% of the "parked" domains aren't parked - they are purchased because people will visit them by mistake. It would be much faster if the domains simply didn't exist and as such wouldn't turn up in search results.

We're all nerds here, and this seems to be a real problem. What can we do about it? Can a Firefox plugin be made to weed out flagged squatted domains? Have you physically complained to Google either through email, written letter, or even in a blog posting/article? Or on the other end, perhaps we could evelop a software suite for parked domains that provides relevant information. Parked domains are annoying, but they'd be less annoying if they were still relevant.

I use the Firefox CustomizeGoogle [customizegoogle.com] plugin to filter linkfarms (e.g. *.info/*) and cloakers (e.g. experts exchange, O'Reilly Safari). I've no affiliation, just posting because this sounds like what you want.

I hope Google really does this. They need to, to restore their "don't be evil" reputation. Arguably, Google went over to the dark side when they started offering domain parking. [google.com]. "Maximize revenue on your parked pages with Google AdSense for domains", they advertise. (Insert Darth Vader quote here.)

"Domain tasting" is a drain on the anti-fraud systems of the Internet. All those domain changes help conceal phishing attacks, many of which involve buying domains with stolen credit cards and exploiting them before the credit card transaction is reversed. Blacklist systems like McAfee SiteAdvisor [www.siteadvisor] and PhishTank [phishtank.com] are always running behind the domain changes.

We rate sites at SiteTruth [sitetruth.com], and all those domain changes are a headache for us. I'm considering taking the position that all domains less than 30 days old are junk, unless they have a good SSL certificate.
Is that too severe, or a good idea? Comments?

I'm considering taking the position that all domains less than 30 days old are junk, unless they have a good SSL certificate. Is that too severe, or a good idea? Comments?

Sounds like a good idea. The Domain tasting [wikipedia.org] article has a few interesting numbers on the amount of domains canceled within the 5 days grace period (after which the bastards re-register it for another 5 days). You really shouldn't want to handle those domains.

30 days would also rule out legit domains that suddenly get a lot of interest (via

I would call it a great idea. If it's too harsh you can always tune the 30 days down to something lower. Also remember when looking for "good SSL certificates" to check the issuer, though I assume you are already doing that. Otherwise they can always self-sign one...

By a "good SSL certificate", I mean one that identifies the business. SiteTruth ignores those "domain control only validated" "Instant SSL" certs. They don't certify much of anything, other than that an e-mail sent to the domain gets to the party that requested the certificate.

It's interesting to see the Web without the bottom-feeders. Most of the spam blogs, phishing sites, link farms, landing pages, directory pages, "affiliates", and related junk go away. What's left is either has a real business b

1. Register a domain A and pay for it2. Wait 5 days3. Put ads on it4. "Taste" some domains5. Put a redirector page from the tasted domains to domain A, or show the content of domain A in a frame6. Profit!

I think domain tasting has taken a turn over the years, but lets not forget why it was here in the first place.

These days, I have no idea how I would go about registering a domain without paying for it. I don't see the option readily available at any registrars that I work with (although, I personally stay away from the big guns like godaddy and network solutions). It seems to me that the people who are doing it tend to be those who want to park domains and put ads up temporarily - and frankly I am opposed to this - as it's nothing but spam.

Would getting rid of the tasting option get rid of these guys? No. It takes a minimal investment to create a certified registrar and at that point domain purchases are cheap enough that you can buy them in bulk at a price point that doesn't do much to preclude the web-spam business model.

But looking back at the reasons for this in the first place - one might want to register a domain, but not have the money to do it immediately. One might change their mind about a registration. Yeah, in the days of $5 and $10 domains, these points seem to lose a great deal of value, but there was a time when it would cost you more than $100 to register a domain. There was also a time when dictionary words and 3 letter domains were widely available because there was no market for commerce on the internet.

If a registrar were to make widely available the "pay in a week" model I certainly would not be opposed to it. If you want to attack the web-spam business model, I think you should do so directly - much like Google is doing.

It seems every time Google gets itself involved in something questionable, we as a community immediately scream "EVIL EVIL EVIL" and this occasion is no different. Several posters have already mentioned that Google has "gone over to the dark side" with their domain parking [google.com] service. But can anyone explain to me how allowing people to make money off domain parking is evil? Surely it is not even remotely on the same level as Yahoo giving up the identities of Chinese dissidents to the PRC [bbc.co.uk].

Have we as a community lost sight of what evil really is? I would agree with you that it is somewhat annoying to accidently stumble upon a link farm. But does that make it evil? Is the practice itself evil? I would say no on both counts. I think we don't give Google enough credit for accomplishing all that they have without succumbing to the predatory practices of large corporations a la Microsoft. I submit that we have really lowered the bar on what it takes to commit evil, and we should consider that a testament to the virtue of Google management.

Let's keep that in perspective. Slashdot discussions show that we don't even begin to hold our other sacred cow corporations (eg. Apple [slashdot.org]) to these extremely high standards.

But Google's support of Domain Parking profits clearly has a significant drag on worldwide innovation. For instance, how many people have searched for a meaningful domain for their site just to find it serving Google ads? How many great ideas were lost because it was difficult to find them at myreallydifficulttorememberdomain.com?

Oh noes! Someone will have to get creative with their site name! Meanwhile, myreallydifficulttorememberdomain.com will get just as indexed as example.com, so if their content is good it won't be any harder to find.

So what is the societal cost of Google's policy? I'd say it has a greater negative effect on the world than the single Yahoo action mentioned. Thus, I would deem it as more Evil.

I'm not one for name calling. It's silly and childish. Having said that, you're an f'in moron for thinking for an instant that those slight inconveniences are more awful than the likely family destruction, torture, and execution that Chinese dissidents face. Go listen to some emo, kid, a